Farmers in Madhya Pradesh’s Sheopur have received Rs 2,000 notes without the image of Mahatma Gandhi, sparking fears that they could be fake. According to news agency ANI, the farmers had received the cash from a local branch of the State Bank of India. The farmers, who initially thought the notes were fake, visited the bank where they were told that it was a printing error and that the notes were “genuine”. The bank later took back the notes.

SBI official R K Jain, too, told ANI that the notes were not fake. “It is not fake currency, it is a misprint. We have sent it for probe.”

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“The incident took place at Shivpuri Road branch of SBI. The notes were not counterfeit, but probably there was some printing error. They were taken back as soon as it (the error) was detected,” the Sheopur district manager of SBI, Akash Shrivastav told Times of India. The TOI report quotes another SBI official pointing out that the space marked for Mahatma Gandhi’s image is blank.

Since demonetisation, there have been multiple instances of fake currency doing the rounds. In December, the Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) of Rajkot police had claimed to have busted a fake note racket. Two persons with fake currency of Rs 26.10 lakh face value were arrested in this connection.